Can we know what animals are thinking? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#71

Post by _dps » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

tpeo wrote: post #63

lngnmn wrote: post #5

No. Animals don't think, because thinking requires language, based on it conceptual thinking and related brain circuitry which animals still didn't evolve. Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language. Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal…

I find it funny that you're being downvoted to shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded. Or at least I guess so, because nothing in philosophy ever really is. The identification of thought (or rather reason ) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method , where he suggested a test f…

No one would have objected to a comment like: "One school of philosophy holds that thinking is inherently linguistic, so in that sense animals probably can't think."

People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living.

I don't see why anyone should exclusively care what Descartes has to say about it when we have an additional 400 years of science after his death that suggests he didn't have the whole picture.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#72

Post by cryodesign » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #62

cryodesign wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be. People of the future will look at this time the same way we look back to when it was accepted to have human slaves. Medicine (and millions of other people) has already proven that we don't need meat to survive. We have plenty of alternatives now. But we are addicted to meat - because it gives us pleasure. But then you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us[1],…

Or we will look back at at vegans and see them as an extreme version of a normal healthy adult. Much the same way we place healthy values on skinny people when taken to the extreme it becomes unhealthy and counter productive. If animals can think and they eat other animals perhaps they will be able to teach us why it may be an acceptable choice.

A few things:

* Veganism isn't about health[1]. It's about avoiding exploitation of other sentient and intelligent beings and reducing suffering on many levels.

* The difference between us and other animals is that we have the ability of critical thinking. We can change our attitude and mind when presented with new information. A lion can't do this (also, a lion needs meat to survive, modern humans don't).

There is a great quote by Aaron Swartz[2] and in that vein I encourage you to watch the videos that were posted in this thread - you might be surprised.

[1] "Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.[...]"

[2] “Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.”

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#73

Post by muninn_ » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #62

cryodesign wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be. People of the future will look at this time the same way we look back to when it was accepted to have human slaves. Medicine (and millions of other people) has already proven that we don't need meat to survive. We have plenty of alternatives now. But we are addicted to meat - because it gives us pleasure. But then you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us[1],…

Or we will look back at at vegans and see them as an extreme version of a normal healthy adult. Much the same way we place healthy values on skinny people when taken to the extreme it becomes unhealthy and counter productive. If animals can think and they eat other animals perhaps they will be able to teach us why it may be an acceptable choice.

The issue with your last sentence is that you're confusing thinking with the ability to have higher order reasoning skills. Animals most assuredly think. It's a matter of orders of magnitude difference, not a fundamental difference. Just as a genius thinks in a way that is far superior to a simpleton. Both think. For some reason we've got it in our collective heads that because your cat can't sit at the table and have coffee with you that it's ok to destroy it in gruesome and horrible ways and somehow because it "doesn't think" that nothing bad is going on. Does the animal not feel pain? How do I know that you feel pain? Because you say it? How is that fundamentally different than the whimpers and cries and reaction of a different animal?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#74

Post by cryodesign » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #65

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

I find that being a vegetarian for moral reasons is quite delusional. We, humans, are inflicting much more suffering to flora and fauna by the simple fact of participating in the industrial modern lifestyle. Buying food at the supermarket, using the internet, travelling, AC, and pretty much any activity we can think of. The underlying problem is that to sustain 7+ billion people we need industrialisation which requir…

You are right, farming could be more sustainable and less destructive (see vertical farm, aeroponics etc).

But it's been proven that producing meat requires more resources than producing plant based foods. So if we truly care about feeding 7+ billion people, then we would reduce our meat consumption or move to a plant based diet completely. This is one thing each of us can directly do something about - by simply buying different foods. You should watch that presentation by Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown.

Also, when talking about moral reasons, this is not just about minimising the suffering of animals. What do you think seeing animals being killed, sliced open alive etc day in day out does to the human psyche - you can find out here: http://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2157... - also see this quote [1].

If you couldn't get any other job other than working in a slaughterhouse or food prep shop and they both pay the same - which job would you pick? Would you want to kill animals every day or rather wash, cut, peel fruits and veg every day?

Our buying choices do matter.

[1] "The worst thing, worse than the physical danger is the emotional toll. If you work in that stick pit for any period of time, you develop an attitude that lets you kill things, but doesn’t let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that’s walking around down in the blood pit with you and think, God, that really isn’t a badlooking animal. You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them-beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care (Dillard, p. 398, 2008). "

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#75

Post by wolco » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:09 PM UTC

cryodesign wrote: post #72

wolco wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we will look back at at vegans and see them as an extreme version of a normal healthy adult. Much the same way we place healthy values on skinny people when taken to the extreme it becomes unhealthy and counter productive. If animals can think and they eat other animals perhaps they will be able to teach us why it may be an acceptable choice.

A few things: * Veganism isn't about health[1]. It's about avoiding exploitation of other sentient and intelligent beings and reducing suffering on many levels. * The difference between us and other animals is that we have the ability of critical thinking. We can change our attitude and mind when presented with new information. A lion can't do this (also, a lion needs meat to survive, modern humans don't). There is a…

What is your take on the morally of eating plants. Plants are living creatures some would say sentient beings. Recent research is showing they feel pain, communicate with other plants. Do they deserve the same protection?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#76

Post by pmoriarty » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

cryodesign wrote: post #59

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

I think it will be. People of the future will look at this time the same way we look back to when it was accepted to have human slaves. Medicine (and millions of other people) has already proven that we don't need meat to survive. We have plenty of alternatives now. But we are addicted to meat - because it gives us pleasure. But then you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us[1],…

"..you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us, so we can experience some pleasure that could be easily achieved by consuming alternative foods and shifting our perception"

One can readily see that the answer to this question is "yes" even when the suffering is that of humans, much less animals.

Many people readily consume products that are created in sweatshops, that are the product or cause of wars and/or environmental damage that has severe (and often deadly) consequences on other humans. Most people don't really care enough to change their consumption habits.

Out of sight, out of mind is a maxim many live by both when they eat and when they buy. Few people want to look in to the proverbial sausage factory or slaughterhouse to find out how their food is made, or in sweatshops to find out how their clothes are made. May if they did they'd change their consumption habits, but most don't really want to. They'd rather bury their head in the sand and enjoy their life. As long as they or their loved ones don't directly suffer the consequences, they effectively couldn't care less how their pleasure was got.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#77

Post by tpeo » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

_dps wrote: post #71

tpeo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that you're being downvoted to shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded. Or at least I guess so, because nothing in philosophy ever really is. The identification of thought (or rather reason ) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method , where he suggested a test f…

No one would have objected to a comment like: "One school of philosophy holds that thinking is inherently linguistic, so in that sense animals probably can't think." People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living . I don't see why anyone should exclusively c…

Why should they object to it, though? If an unsubstantiated claim can't be said to be anything other than an opinion, then it's just his opinion. Plus, it doesn't really matter whether he was being "doctrinaire" or not, because nothing was actually being imposed of me. I'm not being forced to subscribe to this view, I'm not being threatened (e.g. with getting a low grade, being fired, being burned at the stake). And I doubt he would have insisted in his view, too, if it weren't for the response it caused.

Furthermore, I don't believe anyone should exclusively care about Descartes' thought on the matter, whether in the light of contemporary science or not. I just tallied my thoughts as they came, really. But I do believe that there's a way to reply to comments which maximizes the likelihood of there being at least some degree of mutual understanding and which minimizes the likelihood of conflict, and that is to have a charitable, unassuming reading of the comment in question, and to not take offense. And that people should either have that, or not to discuss at all. Else, they might as well talk to the wind.

The whole exchange of comments we have in mind, for instance, was to little or no benefit to everyone involved, being little else than comments of "uh huh" and "nuh huh" back and forth.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#78

Post by yorwba » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #55

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #36

I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think. To claim that animals do not think has no basis outside of our own condescending perspective. If we cannot prove one way or another then I feel my position is the more rational and should be the default position.

>I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think. *x* can *y*, as *z* is a subset of *x*, and *z* can *y*. See the issue here?

You left out the quantifiers.

∃ x : X . x can y ⇐ ∃ z : Z . z can y ∧ ∀ z : Z . z : X

In English: There are X that can y because there are Z that can y and all Z are X. Nothing contradictory there.

While it is not always clear what the intended quantifiers are, it is usually best to choose the interpretation that doesn't make a statement trivially false.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#79

Post by weirdstuff » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

_dps wrote: post #71

tpeo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that you're being downvoted to shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded. Or at least I guess so, because nothing in philosophy ever really is. The identification of thought (or rather reason ) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method , where he suggested a test f…

No one would have objected to a comment like: "One school of philosophy holds that thinking is inherently linguistic, so in that sense animals probably can't think." People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living . I don't see why anyone should exclusively c…

I'm not really biased one way or the other on the upthread conversation, however I think you'll find the Descartes' thinking continues to underlie a great deal of what we call modern science (or more precisely: our defining interpretation of universal phenomenon) and many of the applications that come with that.

You can find great nuggets in modern work just as you can find great nuggets in older work, too. It's not that disposable!

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#80

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

tpeo wrote: post #77

_dps wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one would have objected to a comment like: "One school of philosophy holds that thinking is inherently linguistic, so in that sense animals probably can't think." People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living . I don't see why anyone should exclusively c…

Why should they object to it, though? If an unsubstantiated claim can't be said to be anything other than an opinion, then it's just his opinion. Plus, it doesn't really matter whether he was being "doctrinaire" or not, because nothing was actually being imposed of me. I'm not being forced to subscribe to this view, I'm not being threatened (e.g. with getting a low grade, being fired, being burned at the stake). And…

OP literally started their comment with "No." and followed it up with 3–4 blanket assertions.

Slatestarcodex has a comment policy (http://slatestarcodex.com/comments/) that I think is very relevant here too because I think that's how people implicitly judge most comments—"If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary."

OP's statement was not 100% true so it should at least have been necessary / relevant AND kind / humbly put. It wasn't kind.